


contingency

by sootings (collapsing)



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Minor Violence, fun fact: every george trait here is just a really exaggerated version of an actual george fact, very light on the enemies aspect. it is what it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28973562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collapsing/pseuds/sootings
Summary: Secret for a secret,the note says.It makes logical sense—it’s like a trust fall, George knowing Dream’s face and Dream knowing George’s name. It’s a more common business practice than would be assumed, and at this point Dream suspects that everyone in the espionage industry knows something their own branch would kill to know.It’s just business, but Dream can’t help but think it feelspersonal.or, Dream works on staying alive as a secret agent, meets a pretty boy working for an opposing nation, and tries not to fuck everything up.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 455





	contingency

**Author's Note:**

> a couple things:  
> don't share or mention this to cc's/where they can see, clearly i don't know them and this is intended as a work of fiction  
> schlatt's character (and the other cameos) is based off his dsmp character, although dream/george are based off their irl selves
> 
> a warning for guns and mild violence, there's a couple mentions of vomiting and a scene where one character gets shot with a tranquilizer needle, and non-graphic death.

i. Amsterdam, Holland

Dream has an extremely valuable Vermeer tucked under his arm when the lights suddenly flicker on.

He jumps a little—his instincts are screaming at him to not touch anything, floor included—and whisper-screams, “What the actual _fuck!_ ”, praying that comms picks it up. Embarrassingly, he stumbles over his feet for one horrible moment (if there’s camera footage of him tripping in the overexposed brightness he’ll just die on the spot) before finding his center and running like hell.

He doesn’t drop the painting, though, so he’s counting it as a net win.

(Even if it’s fake—Dream had already replaced it with the original, so the objective is now _whatever happens, don’t get caught_.)

The silence on the other end of comms is almost more concerning than the lights—at this point, Dream should be getting chewed out, but his earpiece has gone completely silent, missing even the background crackling of a connected call. He can’t think about that now, though. He needs to get the fuck out of here.

Subconsciously, he adjusts his mask and keeps moving. Normally, he’d duck into the other rooms just to clear them, but none of this was part of the plan, and it’s been a while since something went _this_ sideways for Dream on a mission.

He makes it to the rendezvous point (the gift shop, difficult to run through but worth the back door) and beelines towards the exit.

Dream almost crashes into a guy sitting on the counter on his laptop, pivoting out of the way and muttering an automatic “Sorry, sorry!” before— _what the fuck?_

“What the fuck,” Dream says dumbly, because at this point there’s no point in pretending like he’s not there. “What—why are you here?”

The thing is: there’s not supposed to be anyone here. Bad had been sure of it—the doors were supposed to auto-lock behind Dream, which meant that the only way out was through their carefully timed backdoor exit, but also meant that no one else could get in.

Whoever the fuck this guy is, there’s no way he should’ve gotten in.

The guy—he looks the same age as Dream, although the thin lines of street light seeping through the window don’t quite reach his eyes—continues looking at his laptop, which is plugged into the fucking wall behind him. “I could ask you the same thing. It’s 3:45am and I’m supposed to believe you’re looking at Impressionist bookmarks?”

He has the cleanest British accent Dream’s ever heard. Dream’s half convinced he’s faking it, which is a stupidly common occurrence in this line of work. It’s damning, though—if Dream had any doubts about this guy being more than just a random who got locked in with Dream, they’re near gone. _APPROACH WITH CAUTION_ , his brain screams.

Mystery Boy finally looks up from his laptop, and shit, he’s _pretty_. Dream stares at him for a few seconds while he gets an increasingly quizzical side-eye in response.

“Oh. Hello…Dream,” Mystery Pretty Boy says warily. It’s at this point that Dream knows for certain he’s industry—he’s _infamous_ , sure, but only to specific, espionage-related circles.

“You know me!”

“You make it a point to be known,” Pretty Boy snarks, waving a hand at the smiley face mask. “How do you see through that thing?”

“How’d you turn on all the lights?” Dream fires back.

The guy has the nerve to give him a dead-eyed stare, fingers flitting over the keyboard. “What lights?”

He manages to sound half-convincing, which is a problem. “You’ve gotta be fucking joking.”

“No, I don’t understand, what’s there to joke about? I’m stuck with you in an art museum gift shop.”

Dream is suddenly inspired to pull his own hair out, or maybe shake Pretty Boy’s shoulders and do—something. He’s off his game. He still has the painting tucked under his arm. “No—no, no, don’t play dumb. You’re probably, like, leaking my coords right now.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not a…what do you think I am? A secret agent or something?”

Dream snorts. “Oh yeah? What’s your name, then?”

The boy—he’s _really_ pretty—glances around for a few seconds. “Uh, Mark?”

_Be lucky you’re not my mark,_ Dream thinks, _or this would be over already._ “I call bullshit.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m wrong about my own name?” His accent gets stronger. Dream tries to tell himself this is useful information to have.

“You’re a really bad liar,” Dream points out. He shouldn’t be pointing out anything at all. He should be getting the fuck out of here. “Are you this bad at field work too?”

“I’m not an agent,” not-Mark snaps.

“Fine! Tech guy, whatever—”

“This has to be the least respected position in the field ever,” not-Mark mutters, dropping the oblivious act immediately. “No respect at all. So rude.”

“Hah!” Vindication is so, so sweet. “I knew it! You’re _such_ a bad liar.”

Pretty Boy doesn’t look fazed in the slightest. “I don’t have to be good? Hand over the fake, let me look at it.”

Dream’s hands move of their own accord, presenting the not-Vermeer like it’s fucking show and tell. _What the fuck is going on,_ Dream thinks, for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes. “What do you mean, fake?”

Some of the cold professionalism is starting to get back to Dream’s braincells. This is _bad_ —if there’s a chance that a rival agency knows anything consequential, then it’s no longer as simple as collecting all the forgeries and locking all evidence anything happened away. No one else besides Dream’s team and their source is even supposed to know it’s a fake, and if Dream had gotten away with replacing it with the original the world would’ve been none the wiser.

“The strokes are all wrong,” Pretty Boy says offhandedly. “It’s not a very good fake, is it?”

There’s something seriously wrong about the UK branch’s hiring process, Dream thinks, but that’s not his problem. “Okay, okay, show and tell’s over. How do I know you’re not going to doxx me?”

“Because it doesn’t matter that you’re here. We have the same target.”

“I don’t know that! For all I know you’re livestreaming this mess to the queen—” Dream squints at Pretty Boy’s laptop, and while there’s the camera feed open in a tiny window, there’s also, “—oh. You’re…messing with cams?”

“You can read code?”

He shrugs. “Out of necessity. I had a hunch. No one in the agency thought it was worth following so I taught myself. I was right, in the end.”

“Impressive.” It’s an offhand comment, but Dream flushes anyways. “Anyways, you should be thanking me. I didn’t have to do that, but I did, you’re welcome.”

“You wouldn’t’ve had to in the first place if you hadn’t _turned on the fucking lights_ ,” Dream says.

“Look,” Pretty Boy says, mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t need to take this from someone whose uniform is a fucking piss-colored hoodie.”

“It’s my _brand_ ,” Dream mutters. “And what the fuck? It’s green?”

“I’m _colorblind_.”

“How did they let a colorblind person run—right, right, tech help, whatever.”

“I am right though, aren’t I?”

“Whatever, this whole thing is fucked. Am I gonna get out of here any time soon?” His original plan is so messed up at this point. There’s no telling what’s on the other side of the gift shop exit, if he’s going to immediately get jumped by Pretty Boy’s entire team, if this whole conversation is being recorded and some British fuckers are just having a good laugh at him right now. The only thing he’s sure of is that his comms piece is dead, or otherwise his support team really sucks at being supportive.

Pretty Boy shrugs. “Just go whenever. Your car’s two blocks down, your squad got it moved when mine rolled up.”

“You seem really okay with just, losing a mission like this.”

“It’s not _losing_ , we’re after the same guy.”

Whatever. Dream waves stupidly at him and cautiously pushes open the door. He’s not immediately tased, so he supposes he’s in the clear. “Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“Can’t say the same.”

Dream takes off running, the adrenaline pouring in now that the shock of whatever just happened is wearing off. His heart pounds in his ears at a concerning rate and he doesn’t stop, not even when his earpiece crackles back to life. He’s just rounded a block corner, panting as he slows down to a walk, and prepares himself for the barrage.

“What the hell just happened, Dream?” Punz yells.

“I—honestly I don’t know. The lights turned on out of nowhere and I think comms got shut off and—there was this guy just sitting there in the fucking gift shop—”

“Right, cross-team interference,” Punz says sourly. “We couldn’t even reach the camera feeds, and they aren’t even showing anything now. Do you at least have anything on them?”

“British, I think, but he said they’re also after our Vermeer guy, unless there’s another reason to be in Delft at this shitty hour.”

“There’s not,” Bad interjects. “Well, if you didn’t get anything useful, hurry up. And quit swearing on comms.”

“Coming, coming,” Dream mutters under his breath.

It’s at this point that Dream realizes he didn’t even get Pretty Boy’s name.

* * *

ii. Miami, Florida

“You’re telling me you don’t know jackshit about this guy, except he has a British accent, and he’s colorblind? How is being colorblind even relevant information to have?”

“He’s also their hacker,” Dream grumbles. “I feel like the fact that he is involved in international espionage is important.”

Sapnap grins. “Dude, you have a crush on the _enemy_.”

Dream smacks his arm. “What are you even talking about? And—we’re going to be late.”

“I’ve never been late when I’ve been paired with you,” Sapnap mutters. “You’re chronically early. It’s disgusting.”

Dream whacks him again. Embarrassingly, Sapnap doesn’t budge an inch. He points at the three molotovs Sapnap’s carrying. “You don’t think we’re actually gonna need those, do you? I mean, it’s go in, grab the paintings, and get out.”

“We’re expecting interference,” Sapnap replies. “Aren’t you always arguing to be more prepared?”

“You’re never going to be more prepared than me,” Dream says. “It’s literally impossible, and because of _you_ , we’re going to be late.”

They’re not late. Bad makes them rattle off the protocols and plans (“Scope out the warehouse, secure the goods, stand guard until you guys come to pick us up, yadda-yadda,” Sapnap singsongs) and they end up reaching the warehouse fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

“I bet you this place is like, either rigged to explode or completely empty,” Sapnap mutters, feet crunching on gravel.

Dream doesn’t respond, picking up a smooth rock roughly the size of his fist and pocketing it. When Sapnap gives him a curious glance, he just says, “Lucky charm.”

“You think we’ll need it?”

“Eh. Hopefully not.”

Their footsteps echo when they step in, and when Sapnap closes the door behind him, it feels almost final. Warehouse heists always make Dream feel uneasy—it’s too open, with too few exits. The ground floor is practically empty except for a few foundational columns, looming ominously.

Sapnap stands with his back flush to Dream’s, scoping out any immediate danger. The lights aren’t on, but the incessant humming suggests that electrical still is. It’s becoming increasingly likely that they’re not the only ones here. Wordlessly, Dream points out a red dot of light half-nestled in a concrete pillar. So they’ve been spotted, then.

“Well,” Sapnap exhales. “No point in staying quiet, then.”

“I’ll go upstairs,” Dream says. “You make sure the bottom’s clear.”

He skirts the edges of the windowsills opposite of the stairs, careful to stay out of the range of any ground floor cameras. The second floor looks deserted at first glance, but Dream knows better than to chance it. He takes out the rock and tosses it lightly, feeling its weight, before pitching it at the ceiling corner.

The camera dislodges with a crunch, dangling by wires.

“Did you hear that?” A voice calls out. British, Dream notes, which only compounds his dread. It’s going to be an outright battle to see who can get their hands on the paintings first, then, although Dream has really no idea what the British want with a warehouse full of fakes.

“Yeah, uh, what the hell was that about?” Multiple footsteps, and Dream realizes that there’s probably like four people up there.

Not the worst odds he’s ever had. He taps his comms earpiece twice, and receives a short “Affirmative” from Punz before he rushes to the stairs.

While the other agents are looking for the source of noise, Dream runs up as fast as he can—the second floor is covered in lines of boxes, like some sort of makeshift maze. He takes advantage of the distraction and manages to take out two of the guys with his taser before they can figure out what’s happening.

From there, it’s a guessing game of hiding behind the right boxes, all while trying not to damage them. There’s gotta be around fifteen rows of them, huge U-Haul boxes stacking halfway up to the ceiling. It’s anyone’s guess which ones have the fakes Dream’s after and he doesn’t want to risk accidentally squashing a duped Monet.

It seems his opponents have less qualms about that, from the way the last two guys shove boxes out of the way to reach him. One of them makes a run for it, ducking out of the way and out the window before Dream can do anything about it, but the other keeps on his trail.

“No, no, no no no,” Dream pleads. He’s having a hard time trying to shoot at them without risking any more precious cargo, but apparently his prayers go unanswered because as he tases the last agent in the arm they stumble around blindly before crashing onto two more boxes.

There’s a crash on the other side of the floor, which is deeply concerning considering Dream’s pretty sure the only three people are on his heels. There’s probably a third party, Dream realizes, and sees that the British guys have come to the same conclusion. In the next three seconds, Dream calls an unspoken truce with them and they book it down the stairs.

He can barely hear them calling for a getaway over the pounding of his heart, and he can’t even be bothered to chase them down as they run for some clearly pre-existing rendezvous point. Instead, he just stays on the ground floor, keeping an eye on the stairs. If there’s a chance he can still save the mission and get those paintings, he will.

Dream pushes his mask up off his face to gulp some air—it’s purely psychosomatic, since the mask is built to ensure he can see and breathe through it perfectly fine—when he spots a vaguely familar figure in the doorway of the security room.

To his dismay, Pretty Boy turns around before Dream can get his mask up.

“Dream,” he says. He points towards Dream’s arm, which is half-heartedly shielding his mask. “Aren’t you missing something?”

“Why are you even here? Thought you weren’t an active agent?”

“I’m not. I’m the backup.” Pretty Boy gestures at his hip, and okay, how the fuck did Dream miss that he was carrying multiple guns?

Dream stares at him in disbelief. “What kind of backup even are you?”

“I’m secretly the best sniper in the UK,” he deadpans, but Dream takes a careful step back anyways.

“You should get out of here,” Dream says, fitting his mask back on. He tells himself it’s just because the less people around, the better, not because of some irrational protective streak. For a guy whose name he doesn’t even know.

“No,” he says, eyes narrowed. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What if I just killed you?”

Pretty Boy has the audacity to laugh in his face (it’s a nice laugh, Dream thinks, if a little cruel) and gestures with his handgun. It’s like a slight of hand, Dream’s brain scrambling to figure out how he’d gotten it out without him noticing. “You wouldn’t.”

“What, you think I don’t have the guts to do it?”

He shrugs, taking a step back (his gun is loaded now) and pauses. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you couldn’t, you know.”

Dream doesn’t even get to respond, because Pretty Boy frowns, eyebrows scrunching together, before darting away out a window. He doesn’t get to respond, because there’s a quiet beeping snagging his attention away. It’s barely noticeable unless Dream concentrates, but it’s _there_ , rhythmic and constant, until it suddenly picks up pace.

_Countdown_ , his brain supplies, and his limbs move on autopilot, sprinting towards the door. Dream’s barely out of the building, leaning against a tree with his eyes squeezed shut, when—

There’s the distinctive sound of an explosion, smoke hanging in the air, and an utterly haunting _laugh_ ringing out.

“So _sorry_ ,” comes the same voice, acid dripping off sharp vowels, “But I can’t have that happening. If it’s not mine, it’s not yours.”

The man behind the voice steps into the brand-new crater of a clearing, spreading his arms out. There’s no fucking way this guy is government, Dream thinks, because there’s just too much dramatics. So he was right about the third party interference.

The whole top floor’s been practically blown out, along with a decent portion of the ground floor. Concrete pillars extend up into the sky, a set of stairs winding up into nothing. Exposed cables spark through the clouds of smoke, buzzing faintly.

Dream’s lungs burn like hell, and his whole body sings with pain, but he moves to towards what used to be the warehouse. Better to die by gunshot than lost outside. Better not to die at all. It’s futile trying to avoid the acrid scent of smoke—his outer gear smells like it was doused in gunpowder, mixing unpleasantly with the bitter adrenaline in the back of his throat.

If he makes it out of here he’s going to be too sore to even move for a week.

Everything around him is gray—the rubble, the remaining pillars of infrastructure, the sky with an overhang of smoke like a fog being slowly lifted. Distantly, he’s aware that part of his mask has been blown off, leaving about half of his face uncovered. There’s probably a cut on his jaw, judging by the way blood trickles onto the ground intermittently. He’s lucky none of it shattered into his eyes or nose.

The man at the center catches Dream’s eye, something bright burning in his dark gaze. “You survived?”

Dream wants to say, _Stay where you are, don’t fucking move, you’re coming with us_.

What comes out is a quiet, “Barely.”

He wonders if this is where he dies. If this man will just kill him right here, and the last thing Dream sees will be his expressive but empty stare.

“You’re going to let me go, then,” he says, voice layered with honey and poison. “The name’s Wilbur, by the way. I’m sure you want that. Wilbur Soot.”

It’s vital information to have, information Dream doesn’t even have on the other mysterious British guy who’s showed up twice now, but every siren in his head is screaming _trap_. His mouth won’t move, jaw stiff with caked blood.

Wilbur cocks his head. “Nothing? Dream, isn’t it? You don’t quite live up to your reputation, I’m afraid.”

When Dream doesn’t respond, Wilbur decides he’s given enough of his attention away and leaves. He shakes his heavy coat, debris fluttering to the ground, and spins on his heel, walking down the stairs with his full back exposed.

Dream doesn’t know what to make of it.

When Dream’s finally confident that there aren’t any other surprise explosions, he heads inside what’s left of the warehouse. The explosion still has his ears ringing, to the point where he can barely hear Bad panicking through his earpiece.

“Go, find Sapnap—we think he’s alright, he’s still connected—we had no idea this was going to happen, really, I’m sorry, cameras got cut off and—”

“You don’t have to apologize, Bad,” Dream says, even though the mission’s an abject failure. “As long as we’re both alive, it’s alright.”

Bad keeps up with the apologies, until Punz takes over and says that they won’t be able to collect Sapnap and Dream any time soon, because they have to be sure that the Brits are completely gone to avoid further confrontation. All the while, Dream can’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that there was a fucking _explosion_.

_It was supposed to be a stealth op,_ Dream thinks, and racks his memory for some kind of unaligned organization. No government agency would mess with the unestablished status quo—stealth means all involved parties have to _stay_ stealth, because more often than not there’s a good reason for the secrecy in the first place.

Sapnap finds Dream first, running out from the nearby trees. “They told me to go inside and see if there’s anyone left.”

“Well, nobody else is here, but there’s no more paintings, either.” Dream kicks over a piece of charred cardboard. It’s annoying, having something go this _wrong_ , and he doesn’t particularly like that they’re going back emptyhanded on top of it.

“Seems like they ran for it,” Sapnap says with a sigh. “Oh well. Didn’t expect them to blow it all up. Why’d they even bother waiting for us, then?”

“Because it wasn’t them. Some guy named Wilbur Soot. Unaffiliated, I think—oh, fuck, do you see that red light in the corner?”

“Cameras are back on?” Sapnap asks. He makes a circle with his pointer and thumb, holding his hand by his leg. “Hey, Punzo, give us a ‘fuck you’ if you can see this.”

“Negative, but I swear to god if it’s that dumb circle thing—”

“Sapnap,” Dream stresses, “Do you want our rescue team to kill us on sight or what?”

“Check cameras and we’ll call it even,” Punz says with a sigh, and goes quiet.

It takes another minute to find the security room, Dream trailing slightly behind to marvel at the soot markings on the ground. It reminds him a little of zombie apocalypse games, with nothing but ashy wasteland left in sight. It’s almost a little surprising to find that the electrical system appears to be completely intact, although that’s probably just because of underground cables.

“Wow, security’s still intact? Small miracle.” Sapnap says.

Dream pauses. “I wouldn’t—I don’t think that’s a good thing, in this case.”

If security’s intact, there’s camera footage. And if there’s camera footage—Dream pulls up the livefeed on a barely cracked monitor, and yup—there’s identities. It's eerie, seeing the bare edges of his jaw and the cracked mask, not to mention Sapnap's entire face in full view.

“Caught in 4-fucking-k,” Sapnap breathes out. Dream doesn’t think he quite likes the dangerous way Sapnap’s eyes sharpen, the way his knuckles go white clutching his last molotov.

“Wait,” Dream cuts in. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna check the recording.”

“You think it’s been tampered with?”

Dream thinks back to Amsterdam, with its complete _lack_ of footage, everything wiped clean. “I have reason to believe that, maybe.”

Sapnap frowns, but wordlessly scoots to let Dream hunch over the computer. “This it?”

Dream shrugs. “Hopefully.”

In the end, all he can do is download everything onto a hard drive and hope that he didn’t fuck it up. The recordings were noticeably clean, as he suspected, but there’s a file that catches his eye.

It looks like a note.

Dream hums distractedly, tucking the hard drive into a secure inner pocket before dealing with the wreckage.

“There’s too much evidence,” Dream says slowly. It’s far from the worst, but an explosion is reason enough to spark higher tensions if not outright war. The warehouse looks like some stage set of a ruined pantheon, and again Dream thinks about Wilbur’s dramatic edge.

“We have to torch this place to the ground,” Sapnap says, and Dream has never heard his voice so even. Chills crawl their way down Dream’s spine. Dream’s discomfort must be apparent, since he follows it up with “ _Oh_ , come on now,” mirth trickling into his words. It’s a line they’ve used before, one Dream gets mocked relentlessly over comms for saying, but now it just makes Dream uneasy.

“I know it’s the only thing we can do,” he says quietly. _I just don’t like the look in your eyes right now._

Sapnap wordlessly hands a canister of gasoline to Dream, whose hands are still shaking.

The day ends with silence, ashes floating like makeshift stars in a dark night sky. Sapnap doesn’t do his usual quips, and Dream turns the little information they’ve recovered in his head. Fake paintings. Investors. Wilbur Soot, and the damage left in his wake. A British man who left a note but not a name.

Dream doesn’t tell anybody about the file (not that anyone asks, because the explosion is still burning in the forefront of everyone’s minds) and cracks open his personal laptop. It’s just a text file, but Dream cuts off the internet just in case, leaving him disconnected and alone, save for whatever message Pretty Boy left.

God, it’s like passing notes in elementary school.

There’s no encryption, which makes it feel almost too easy, but in the end he gets:

_G e o r g e_

_there shouldn’t be any evidence left :]_

and a second string of numbers, incomprehensible and meaningless. It’s a note, he realizes, locked with a simple ASCII encryption. It’s not hard to crack by any means (Callahan probably has a set solution) but Dream dutifully plugs in numbers instead. He tries a handful of one-digit numbers, before settling on the date of the not-Vermeer heist. It works, and within minutes Dream’s heart is crawling up his throat for no good reason, unnecessary anticipation in his blood.

_Secret for a secret_ , the note says.

It makes logical sense—it’s like a trust fall, George knowing Dream’s face and Dream knowing George’s name. It’s a more common business practice than would be assumed, and at this point Dream suspects that everyone in the espionage industry knows something their own branch would kill to know.

It’s just business, but Dream can’t help but think it _feels_ personal.

* * *

iii. Nice, France

It’s nearing sunset, and Dream has spent about six hours wandering around the city on foot, jetlagged out of his mind, with no end in sight.

Dream is no longer surprised when instead, he runs into George, sitting in an alleyway café like a casual tourist. (To be fair, he’s also dressed down this time—he’s still wearing the standard bulky pants, but the mask is noticeably absent. It’d almost be considered _fashionable streetwear_ , although his beat-up Nikes kind of kill the vibe.) 

He’s also no longer surprised when George spots him before he wants to be seen.

_“Eh bien, on est fait pour se recontrer,”_ George says by way of greeting.

“What?”

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” he repeats in English. He takes care to enunciate every word, like the problem is Dream’s comprehension and not the fucking language barrier.

“So you’re on the job?” Dream asks, picking his words carefully. He can’t sound like he knows too much, he can’t play too dumb in case George catches on with the act.

“No, you’re interrupting a perfectly good vacation,” George says, voice dripping with sarcasm. He sighs, seemingly already done with Dream’s bullshit. “Yes, of course I am, do we ever go anywhere for anything else?”

“Well, maybe you just don’t get the same benefits as we do then,” Dream quips. “Look—can we just talk? No funny business?”

To his surprise, George breaks into laughter. “Yeah, we can _just talk_. Go for it, start a conversation.”

Dream’s mystified by sudden change, by the way the mask of snarky indifference falls apart. “Uh, um—what brings you—shit, no, uh, nice weather we’re having?”

It’s a little overcast, on the edge of raining, and Dream has goosebumps because he’s a world class secret agent, one of the best, but he still habitually underdresses for places that don’t have year-long tropical weather. George doesn’t seem to be faring any better, but he still looks utterly delighted.

“Oh, the weather’s great, so much better here than in London,” George says cheerily.

“Okay, asshole,” Dream grumbles, but he’s relaxing, which is counter-productive to his job. “Fine! Fine, can we talk business?”

“Is this an interview? Because I’m not really looking for a new job right now, you see, the thing is, I’m covered.” George gestures at his laptop, and for all Dream knows he’s downloading the entirety of France’s secrets, and Dream will just have to let it happen.

“George.”

“Is there any chance I get out of this?”

“I’m trying to avoid a scene, but no. My feet hurt like hell and I just want to sleep. I’ll make it quick, I promise. George, come _on_ , you know this is the easiest thing you can do.” Dream can’t stop reveling in the way his name fits in his mouth, the way he has an actual name to put to the face now.

George puts his hands up. “Fine, fine. Let me pack up my stuff.”

He probably takes extra time paying than necessary, chatting with the waitress in semi-fluent French that Dream can’t pick up, just to be an asshole. It takes him so long that Dream swears the sun practically sets within the time it takes.

“You really took your time there,” Dream hisses as they walk down the street. He’s trying to make it less obvious that George doesn’t know where he’s going, but it’s a bit of a no-go.

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” George replies. He stops every five seconds to look at shit, which makes him an extremely annoying not-hostage but a convincing enough tourist. By the time they reach his apartment door Dream’s halfway convinced that he actually is just wasting up George’s vacation hours.

Dream stops suddenly. “Wait, George, George, do you have a fucking gun on you?”

“It’s a taser gun, no bullets,” George says, mild exasperation creeping into his voice. “What, are you gonna run a search on me?”

“Just—set it on the table when you get in, okay?” Dream stresses before swinging open the door.

Dream trails behind George to block off the exits, even if it’s a bit of a strange move considering that it’s _his_ apartment they’re at. But if George notices, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes a customary glance around for the obvious signs of a trap, finding only the tiny studio, unlived in. The blinds are down, only thin lines of sun filtering through the windows.

“Why the fuck are we here?” George asks, although his body language doesn’t exactly scream threatened. He’s already claimed one of the chairs at the table, laptop propped up again.

“I told you, I want to talk business. You’ve showed up on our missions twice now, even though you’re technically support and don’t have to be there, and I just need to know you won’t sell me out.”

“Right,” George says, and it’s clear that he’s taking his time now, back on guard. “Well, I already gave you my name.”

“To be fair, you get a lot more out of knowing what I look like than me knowing your name. You know we can’t even find your birthday with that? There’s like—nothing.”

“You checked? Besides, you still found me. Assuming that’s why you’re here.”

“Figured it out through your branch. You, however—I think you know more than you’re letting on.”

George rolls his eyes. “I don’t know shit. I just, I don’t know, it’s like you said. I do the computer stuff.”

“Just—sit down, answer the questions you want to answer, whatever, okay?” Dream mutters.

George cautiously takes a seat, his guarded body language making it apparent that he doesn’t trust Dream in the slightest. That’s fine. That’s smart, even, because technically Dream _is_ the enemy here, and he’s got the definite upper hand. Dream’s fairly confident that he can take George in a fight if the latter doesn’t have a gun, and Dream probably has more consistent combat training anyways.

Dream pours them both two glasses of water (straight from the tap, which might be a bit risky) and makes a show of downing half his glass before setting the other in front of George.

“What, you’re not going to try the old wine-drunk interrogation trick?”

“It’s not an interrogation,” Dream lies, even though it totally is.

“Right,” George says, then snaps his laptop shut before shoving it in his backpack. “So I assume you don’t mind that I turned off your wifi?”

“Great, now you’ve ruined the surprise. I was gonna ask Alexa to play romantic candlelight music.”

George wrinkles his nose. “You really expect me to believe this place has an Alexa.”

It’s a bit mean, if fair—it’s an _accommodation_ , not a five-star hotel, and it’s probably a miracle that Dream had wifi in the first place. The only light doesn’t quite reach the kitchen and table, which would normally be lit by the window but in the dying light only seems more ominous. The shadow of George’s taser makes it seem imperceptibly larger, and Dream has to take another sip of water to cover his nerves as he sits opposite of George.

“So. What are you willing to tell me?” It’s an awkward start, but interrogation really isn’t Dream’s strong suit. He’s built for ducking knives and bullets, for slipping in and out without anyone knowing he was ever there at all. Unfortunately, Dream’s the only possible candidate for this job—“Less of a questioning and more of a hangout,” Bad had said. “Just find out what you can.” It feels almost like a shitty police drama scene.

“My name is George. I’m a glorified IT guy for the British government, and you knew all of that already.”

“Is your name actually George?”

“Why would I need a codename?” And then, with mild derision, “ _Dream_.”

“Okay, fine. What do you know about the art forgeries?”

“What? I—no, I don’t know anything about those. Why would I know anything about that.”

Dream nearly facepalms, but his superior agent training stops him last second. “You’re a shit liar.”

George rolls his eyes. “Okay, well. How am I supposed to know what you know, we could know the same amount of critical information.”

“Tell me anyways,” Dream says, and tactically moves to get another glass of water. It’s a sign of trust or weakness to reveal his back to the opposer, but also it’s just because Dream’s throat is drier than a desert at the moment.

“I don’t understand most of it, honestly,” George says. “What happens if I tell you what I _think_ is right, but it becomes misinformation?”

“I’ll take that risk,” Dream grumbles, but he hates to admit that George has a point—a red herring, deliberate or otherwise, could have them pooling resources in the opposite direction.

“Look, I just don’t know what to tell you that would be _useful_ to you, unless you tell me why you tracked me down to ask me this in the first place—”

“ _No._ ”

“—See, that’s what I mean, what happens if I tell you and you just—kill me?”

Dream blanches. “You really think I would do that?”

George shrugs, like he wouldn’t be surprised, and it makes Dream feel a little more uneasy.

It takes about forty minutes to get anything of value out of him. George may be a shit liar, but he’s really good at evasion, which is something that’s starting to become a pain in Dream’s ass. The sky’s turned completely dark, with only the lightbulb in the living room casting light onto them.

In the end, Dream learns this: the paintings are forgeries of an unknown origin, and George suspects there’s multiple sources behind them, but just one organization pooling them together for a purpose. The next part is a little murkier, but there's possible ties between the distributors, the investments, and apparently, American politicians.

“You think it has to do with the election?” Dream asks. It’s late July, but depending on how long ago this whole con started, it could’ve shaped the entire campaign.

“I don’t know, does it look like I understand American politics?” George says.

“There’s gotta be a reason why the British have to get involved at all. Or why you guys seem to be a step ahead of us.”

George shrugs like he doesn’t particularly care. “Probably some bribery going on?”

Dream pauses. George, backlit with a yellowed lightbulb, is his biggest shot at unraveling this mystery right now, but Dream can’t help but think that he’d rather figure out more about the man than the paintings. “Do you have any names?”

George’s hand stills on the table (Dream hadn’t even realized he was tracing circles in the wood grain) and frowns. “I’ll answer that question on one condition: I get to ask you one.”

“Fine,” Dream says, leaning back in his chair. “But nothing work-related.”

“That’s not fair. All you’re asking me is work questions. You’re practically asking me to hand over state secrets.”

“You haven’t really been answering them.”

“Fine. Give me a piece of paper, then I want you to get rid of it. Burn it, flush it, whatever.”

“I didn’t mic the place,” Dream insists, but he obliges anyways.

George scribbles out the name—Dream watches the way his (left) hand loops around the letters—and slides it across the table. Dream looks at the name and then back at George, who just raises an eyebrow.

“Does that help you?” George sounds like he legitimately wants to be helpful.

“You have no idea.” Dream says, and makes a show of tearing up the paper, going to the bathroom, and flushing it. When he comes back, George is practically unmoved. “Your question, then. Since I keep my promises.”

George narrows his eyes. Dream’s reminded of how the light never quite seems to touch his eyes, how it was one of the things that tipped Dream off when they first met that he wasn’t some fucking normal guy somehow stuck in a museum. George catches him staring, and it sends tingles down his spine that have little to do with mask-less eye contact. Then:

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Dream blinks in surprise. “I—not on purpose.”

Once, after he’d shot an agent inbetween the ribs and called the ambulance, he’d looked up the man during follow-ups despite Bad’s protests, because he had to know, he had to know for sure. The agent had died in emergency care, and Dream spent three hours bowled over the toilet, shaking. When Bad eventually came to get him, all he’d said was that _you have to live with it in the moment, and then it’s over. You have to put it in the past._

Dream remembers every shot he’s made, remembers that some of them hit stomachs, rib cages, spines, remembers well where the vital organs are and what wounds bleed out the fastest. He knows that Callahan has silently ensured that there’s no way for Dream to chase the steps back and find out for sure, that it’s just another weight on his shoulders.

“Well,” George says slowly. “You’re one of the lucky ones, then.”

George’s hands are clean and barely calloused, flitting lightly over the keys with an elegance that Dream finds himself drawn to. It’s an elegance born from not having to punch out passcodes in order to save yourself, and again he finds himself wondering why a tech man would be physically needed at all these missions at all.

“What about you?” Dream asks, trying for careless and hitting a desperately forced casual note instead. “You ever—what, locked oxygen out of a room remotely? Called out shots through a camera?”

George fixes him with his fathomless stare. Raises an eyebrow. “Something like that.”

Dream exhales shakily. “I don’t—I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can we just ask each other dumb shit instead?”

“What is this, twenty questions?”

“It can be if you want it to be.”

“You can’t even skip out with shots,” George mutters. “Fine, sure, whatever.”

“But nothing— _personal_. No asking about families, no asking about anything that could get either one of us compromised. You go first.”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know, I’m bad at thinking on the spot,” George says. And then, uncertainly, “I don’t know, how tall are you, I guess?”

“6’3. On paper. I could still be growing—” George rolls his eyes again, “—uh, how tall are you?”

“5’9.”

“Hah, you’re so short. Thought you’d use the metric system.”

“I don’t think you know how to use metric,” George snaps, but it’s lighthearted now. “Okay, my turn again, What’s your mask made of?”

“Uh, I dunno, you’d have to ask—” Dream stops short. “Damn, you almost got me.”

“It’s cool. It’s not like I don’t already know.”

Dream can’t help the way he scrunches his nose at that. It reminds him that the man sitting in front of him—that George is dangerous, despite his casual tone and thin wrists. As casually as he can, Dream nudges the taser an inch towards George, who doesn’t take it but definitely clocks the movement.

“My turn, you sneaky bitch. How’d you land in the tech sector?”

“No work questions, Dream,” George reminds him firmly.

“It’s an internal question, I don’t learn anything—”

“Whatever. I got moved into it because they found out I have a degree in compsci.”

Dream catalogues that information for later, although at this point he’s near confident George could tell him anything and they still wouldn’t be able to find his identity. “You have a degree?”

“Not your turn. Why do you want to know?”

“I have a friend who wants to major in it,” Dream says. It’s not a lie, not really, it’s just that Sapnap never ended up going to college. “You have a degree?”

“Sure. Are you going to ask for my portfolio or other useless shit now? Or can I go?”

Dream sighs. He has enough, he figures. It’s more useful than anything they’ve figured out on their own. “You’re the rudest guest ever, you know.”

“What,” George says flatly, making a show of pocketing his taser gun. “Do you want a compliment, too? God, you’re needy.”

Dream stands up with George, intending to make a quip about walking him to the door and being a good host, but they end up with their faces barely a foot away from each other and he nearly forgets to breathe.

“Yeah,” Dream says quietly. “Is that too much? I’ll give you a minute to think.”

George hums, and he’s stalling for time again, but that means Dream has to keep staring at him because it’s awkward to look away. He has a smattering of freckles dotting his cheeks, and Dream wonders if his skin would be warm under his hands before instantly retracting those thoughts. George stands oblivious, until finally:

“I like your eyes a lot.” He says it like it’s costing him to even breathe the words out. Maybe it is. Dream’s heart is racing and it has very little to do with him interrogating an opposing sector’s agent. Not that that’s even happening anymore.

“Uh, yeah, they’re a little more green in the light,” he stutters out. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The words are tumbling out of his mouth recklessly and all his months of training are wasted in this moment.

George laughs, light. “I’m colorblind, idiot, I just meant that they’re _bright_.”

Dream stares at him, no idea what the hell he means, and George looks back. He’s tilting his head up a little, at this angle, and Dream doesn’t know if he can look away.

George moves first, hand reaching up to touch Dream’s face. Dream feels like the warmth is spinning through his body from where his mouth meets George’s, and for a brief moment he forgets entirely what he’s meant to be doing.

That is, until George abruptly pulls away and Dream feels a pinprick in his neck, George’s hand warm over the spot.

Dream hears more than feels himself stumbling backwards, feet heavy heavy heavy. The last thing he hears is the hitch in George’s breath before he blacks out.

He comes to with the sunrise, his eyes straining against the light. By the time he orients himself, he’s not surprised to see that George has disappeared without a trace. The door is still locked, the kitchen window firmly shut. George is probably already nine hours away, and when Dream goes to check with his laptop (the wifi is back on, too), it’s been completely wiped. There wasn’t anything critical on there to begin with, but now Dream’s stuck with no communication at all. He sits cross-legged on the floor, thinking up ways to himself out of the foreign country. There’s no point in trying to track George back down, at this point.

It’s like George was never here at all, save for a sore spot on his neck and the ghost of lips on his.

* * *

iv. LA, California

It’s not his first solo mission, but it’s been a long time since he had to attend one of _these_ events, and even longer that he’s had to sit through one without Sapnap by his side.

He can practically feel the strobe lights on his face, overbearing and exposed. His fingers itch for his mask, left behind at headquarters, subconsciously touching his face only to find it isn’t there. It’s a comfort he wishes he weren’t reliant on, but there’s something haunting about direct eye contact in this line of work.

“Hey,” Punz says in his earpiece, barely audible over the pounding base. “You good there?”

“You know I hate these kinds of jobs,” Dream whispers, as discreetly as possible. He wishes he had a drink to cover his mouth, but it’s not worth asking for a fake ID just for that.

“Lighten up, man, how often do you get to say ‘ _I went to a nightclub for my job_ ’? They really pulled out all the stops for this one, dude, it’s got great reviews.”

_What kind of presidential campaign afterparty takes place in a fucking club?_ Dream thinks, but keeps his mouth shut. He fiddles with his tie instead, because this is the kind of dickish event where the dress code calls for a suit at a club.

Punz sighs. “I know you hate the waiting game. Just—try to enjoy yourself a little, y’know? Talk to some people, whatever.”

“Let me know if there’s any action.”

“With luck, there won’t be any. Oh—and, uh, sorry, by the way. That you have to do this one alone.”

“It is what it is,” Dream says as nonchalantly as possible. It still comes out a little strangled.

He does a few circles around the crowd, partly to get a feel of the people but mostly to calm his nerves. Mentally, he notes attributes of the people that could be cause for concern: a tall woman whose stature screams secret security, a person with a British accent spilling out a sly smile, a short-ish man with a hidden shotgun lining his suit noticeable only to a trained eye, an even shorter man pressed close to the center despite the vaguely rumpled state of his suit and even stranger, the beanie on his head. Dream watches as shotgun guy weaves through the crowd towards the outer circle, something about his shitty posture sticking out—

Damn. Dream’s off his game tonight.

Dream corners George in the bathroom and immediately uses his forearm to pin George to the stall door. He tries and mostly fails not to notice his wide brown eyes.

“You,” Dream snarls, shaking. “You-you _compromised_ Sapnap? After I let you go in France? And you have the fucking _nerve_ to show your face around here?”

George opens his mouth to speak, which makes another spike of anger flare up in Dream’s chest. “No-no, shut up, shut up, don’t waste your excuses on me. Why the _fuck_ are you here?”

The fucker makes a motion towards his neck and exhales with a hiss as Dream reluctantly lowers his arm. “God, I’m not here to get in your way or whatever, I just know people here.”

“Schlatt?” Dream takes a step back. Sure, the whole job is to protect him, but Dream doesn’t respect that fucker at all.

George sees this and does his patented eyebrow raise, seemingly unaffected by all of this. He looks good in a suit, Dream thinks, before the anger slaps him out of it. Stupid, “I said I know him, that’s all. Chill out, dude.”

“I’m not going to fucking _chill out_ , _dude_ , you got Sapnap compromised!”

George glares up at him. Then, in a clinically curious tone that makes Dream want to throw hands: “How’d you know it was me?”

“Too clean. We—I couldn’t trace back anything,” admits Dream. He’d spent upwards of a week, following rabbit trails that stopped suddenly, before realizing what that meant. And, because it matters, “I didn’t snitch you out. But there’s no saying that the others don’t recognize that pattern.”

George nods absently, then slips towards the bathroom door. “I’m going to go now, if you don’t mind.”

Dream looks up at the ceiling and begs whatever god is out there for just _one_ mission to go well. “Do I have it in ‘good faith’ that you won’t use that gun on any important presidential candidates?”

“It’s a precaution, not a plan,” George says. At Dream’s clearly dubious glare, he adds, “You’d know if I wasn’t telling the truth, since I’m such a shit liar. Feel free to ignore me. I’ll stay out of your way.”

“Will do,” Dream snarks. He’s wasting time here—the sooner he can clear the building, the sooner he can see his sister.

“Oh—” George has the gall to sound genuine, “happy birthday, by the way.”

That’s something. Not even Punz knows his birthday. Unnervingly, it warms Dream as much as it scares him.

_What the fuck else does he know?_

Dream takes his time washing his hands. He’s no use as jumpy as he is, likely to overreact and draw suspicion. Better to wait for his nerves to settle.

By the time he leaves the bathroom, George is nowhere to be seen—which isn’t exactly unusual, given his height and the mandatory black tie attire, but Dream keeps an eye out anyways. He circles the perimeter, making half-hearted small talk. A few times, he spots George moving further away as Dream rotates around. So he really is avoiding Dream.

He thinks about going back in the bathroom to check if he’s bugged, but one time he looks up at George only to find he’s already staring back. George looks away first, ducking back into the crowd. Dream turns in the direction of the bar.

“Uh, Shirley Temple, please.”

When the bartender gives him a raised eyebrow, Dream fakes sheepish and ducks his head. “I’m just an intern.”

“Mhm. Sucks. Come back when you’re twenty-one with an ID, and I’ll tell them to give you a drink free of charge.”

It’s his twenty-first birthday now, and the ID with his real name is tucked faux-carelessly in his bookshelf back at home. Dream forces a smile, and takes his drink wordlessly.

He takes a few sips, just to do something. It’s a little on the sweet side, but overall it’s pretty good. At the center of the club, Schlatt’s stepping up to the mic. Dream makes a half-hearted attempt to listen, more focused on trying to scope out George again than actually paying attention.

“People of America,” Schlatt is saying, his voice amplified by the mic and his sheer bravado, which Dream doesn’t think is an act. “Ladies and gentlemen of this great nation, I gotta ask—how are we all feelin’?”

A chorus of applause. Barely audible over it, a ping on Dream’s earpiece.

“Dream,” Punz says warningly. “Standard security’s down. Get closer to the target.”

“And I know you’re all wondering, _‘Are we really supposed to take this man seriously? He’s at a fuckin’ club talking politics and he wants to be the next president?’_ But we’re gonna get elected, and we’re gonna run things differently—"

And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

Dream makes out the shape of a large, boar’s head mask, emerging from behind the stage, before Schlatt seemingly disappears off the stage. The strobe lights flicker off, drowning the place in darkness. As the mayhem erupts around him, Dream tries his best to keep up with comms (“They’re heading towards the back exit, we slashed their tires, I don’t think they can get far—“) while pushing his way through the crowd.

In the push of bodies, Dream briefly considers the mask, before remembering that he can’t use it—it’s skirting the edge of recognition, in case there really was an attendance list. He reaches for his gun instead, flicking the safety off.

Once he’s out on the street, gun clutched tight in his right hand, he surveys the possible paths. No suspicious cars in sight, which could be bad, but Dream didn’t hear any engines. The nearby alley is empty, which didn’t exactly scream political execution in the first place. There’s a few high-rise buildings across the street, a few rows of light flickering on in one of them.

Bingo.

It’s no use trying the main entrance—too obvious, so he ducks through the garage system and up three flights of stairs. There’s a convenient little balcony looking over the main lobby, which is only helpful if no one spots him through the glass first. On the ground floor: a smattering of people, the man with the pig mask, and Schlatt, surrounded.

“You locked in on Schlatt?” Bad asks. “I heard that—”

“—Technoblade’s here,” Dream confirms glumly. There’s not much to be done in this case. The running escalators are really fucking loud, to the point where he can’t quite make sense of what’s being said downstairs. Technoblade takes a step back, and someone yells something.

There’s a bang, a body, and a brief pause before everyone but Technoblade scatters. Two guys are running up the elevators, for whatever reason, and Dream’s instincts are fucking screaming at him. Gunshots are ringing out left and right now, and Dream can’t tell where they’re coming from.

“Oh my god,” Dream whispers. “Bad—Punz—I gotta get outta here—"

“On it,” Bad says. “We’ll only contact you when we have something figured out, okay? You got this.”

Dream takes a deep breath. There’s no use trying to get to higher floors—they’re all offices, probably, locked up for the weekend—but there is another balcony right below with no escalator reach. He climbs over the edge and _swings_ , forcing all his weight towards safety. He has to make an inelegant roll to cushion the landing as best as he can, but he’s back on his feet in seconds.

It’s still not enough—there’s already a guy here, clearly intending to make an escape, but now that Dream’s caught him he has his gun out. Dream wracks his head for any other possible escape methods, but the lobby’s too far down and he can’t get back up without this guy just shooting him. He’s stuck.

It happens within a split second.

There’s a gun pointed at him and then there isn’t. The explosive _bang!_ of a gunshot rings out and Dream isn’t instantly dead. His assailant hits the glass window and Dream feels more than sees the bullet whizzing past his ear, hitting the other man square in the foot.

Dream looks upwards, where the sound came from, and sees George, gun in hand.

“Holy fucking _shit_ , you could’ve hit me!”

“You could stand to sound a little more grateful.” George’s grinning at him, bright and sure, and Dream wants to lose himself in the moment.

“You are _so_ annoying.”

“Just, get up here, use the stairs, they’re clear,” George says, still smiling. It’s all so fucking surreal.

Dream takes the stairs—George’s definition of _clear_ means there’s a guy lying prone at the very bottom, which is a little intimidating—and runs next to George. It’s hard to remember that he’s supposed to be mad at him, partially because he just got his life saved, but mostly because George looks so _alive_ right now.

“Okay, I don’t actually have a plan, I just know that parking isn’t clear,” George admits. “So—Dream, you got any ideas?”

“How—what the hell, how good are you actually with a gun?”

“I _told_ you, I’m the best sniper in the UK—” At Dream’s baffled look, George lets up a bit. “Fine, not actually, probably, but I’m still pretty good.”

Dream nods absently, fitting the pieces together. “You said you transferred into tech—what, were you an agent before? An actual sniper?"

“Does it matter?” George replies, quick. “And no, I wasn’t an active agent. Now, what’s your plan—you have a plan, right?”

“I don’t kn—get to the outside, climb up a ladder, I think I saw a fire escape, and just wait it out until it’s safe to go back down. You’re not like, alone-alone, are you?”

He doesn't know why he's asking. He shouldn't care what happens to George, especially since George didn't care about Sapnap.

But he's asking anyways.

George shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make it out.”

The nearest fire escape turns out to be one story up and all the way across the floor, but they run like hell, not bothering to try for quiet. It’s only when they can see the railing that they start crouching—“We could get ambushed,” Dream points out as quietly as he can, and George only nods his reply.

They’re about to turn the final corner when George smacks an arm out, making Dream stumble backwards. “Shut up, shut up, you hear those footsteps?”

_No_ , Dream thinks, but refuses to admit it.

George fires out two shots around the corner, and although Dream doesn’t see them hit, he hears a sharp yell. They make it five more steps, Dream walking forwards while George covers his back, before Dream sees a figure at the opposite end. On instinct, he shifts to the left to cover George with his body.

“George,” Dream says quietly, and in the time it takes George to double-check their surroundings and turn around, they’ve been clearly noticed. The figure steps into the flickering light, and Dream’s heart sinks at the familiar shape of the huge mask.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Technoblade says.

“I think you just killed a presidential candidate,” Dream says faintly.

“I was peer pressured,” Techno says, although Dream privately thinks his voice is remarkably steady.

“Into killing a guy,” George replies, equally flat.

Techno shrugs, which could mean anything from _it happens/I don’t care/that’s how it is on this bitch of an earth_. “You didn’t stop me.”

“Could I have?”

Technoblade gives a _hah!_ of a laugh and points accusingly at the gun (still smoking, Dream notes distantly) in George’s hands. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

“He fooled me,” Dream points out, because at this point he’s feeling a little left out. Which is insane, because they’re still casually standing here at the site of an _assassination_. “I didn’t really believe it until maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

That seems to spark a collective _oh, shit_ moment—Dream’s nerves wake up screaming for him to get the fuck out of here, and they’ve already wasted so much time. Technoblade’s body tenses, and if Dream takes an automatic step back, well.

“You’re just a romantic,” Techno mutters. “I’d advise you to get the hell outta here, though. I might not kill you, but the others won’t show the same mercy.”

“We’ve noticed,” George says faintly.

Techno gives them a hard stare before turning briskly on his heel, towards the garage. Dream exhales, stress unspooling from his chest. _What the hell was that?_

George is already pushing ahead, one hand on the ladder. He looks at Dream expectantly, and Dream half-wishes he had his mask again.

Wordlessly, they climb up the ladder and onto the next platform. There’s not much left to do but wait, and it leaves Dream tense all over. After five minutes with just the night wind for noise, George suggests they try going up a little more so he can see the floor better. Dream shudders the entire time, eyes glued straight ahead. George doesn’t say anything, but the curiosity’s evident.

“I’m scared—I’m scared of heights,” he admits. The words come out like a whisper.

“Sapnap asked me to do it. He wanted to be compromised. He came to me,” offers George. A secret for a secret.

The wind gets knocked out of his lungs and Dream white-knuckles his pants, stomach in knots. “That’s. That was risky and stupid of him. You guys got lucky. If he got caught, or—”

“We didn’t, though.”

“Still. So much of that comes down to luck.”

But also: he gets it. He thinks about how Sapnap’s eyes are haunted even though he’s barely out of school, how George can scrub away any trace of existence in the system and he knows that George is right.

It doesn’t help how sick Dream feels at the thought—he wonders if he’d be better off not knowing, if having this information was worth the inherent risk. They’ve got to stop telling each other shit. Every step is a minefield, and at this point Dream doesn’t trust himself to not give up anything to George. He’s a mess of feelings, lingering anger and weightlessness, fear and excitement, all at once.

“I don’t think they’re going to leave anytime soon,” George says, and it takes a moment for Dream to realize what he means. “Ugh, we might just be stuck up here. They’re probably trying to flush you out.”

Dream sighs. It’s been a kind of shit birthday, all things considered. Part of him wants to give up, just sit here on an old platform six stories up with George. It wouldn’t be an awful way to end the day. But the other part of him is running through escape routes, a plan B for every contingency, a backup plan for the backup plan.

There’s movement—people rushing back into the building. They’re almost out of time, then. George tenses, hand flexing on his gun. Dream just looks up at the night sky. There’s no stars, not this deep in the city.

“You’re thinking of something,” George notes.

“It’s…stupid.”

“Would you go through with it if I wasn’t here?” When Dream doesn’t respond, George rolls his eyes. “That’s what I thought. Tell me the plan.”

“It’s not a plan—”

“Dream.”

“It’s counter-intuitive.”

“ _Dream_.”

“Go all the way up the ladders, climb to the top of the building, exit routes from there.” Dream watches as George absorbs this in silence, eyes dark and unreadable.

“You’re scared of heights,” George breathes.

“Yeah,” Dream says, already shaky. “But—that’s what I’ve got.”

“I think you should go first,” George says slowly, after a few moments of consideration. “Your footwork’s better than mine, and as long as we get one person up you can help me.”

“And what, you’re just gonna stand here until I get up? No, that’s stupid, it’s _risky_ —"

“I’ll just shoot whoever tries to follow,” interrupts George. His voice goes flat, taking on a flinty edge. Dream looks down (the wind’s knocked out of his throat and he almost loses his balance, along with his dinner) and knows with a cold certainty that even if George aimed off, the drop would be fatal.

_You’re one of the lucky ones,_ Dream remembers, and this time he catches the exclusive _you_. Not _we_.

This time, he doesn’t think the shivering has anything to do with the height, or the increasing cold.

George pays him no heed. “We gotta go—footsteps from inside, I think, they’re getting closer.”

Dream takes the lead, fighting between the urge to check if George is still following him and the knowledge that if he looks down, he’s going to lose it.

“I’m still behind you,” George says, as if he knows. Dream takes a deep inhale and clambers up the last of the ladder. From there, it’s a few meters of unguarded climbing, but Dream manages to loop a short bit of rope around one of the HVAC units, and makes it up over the ridge. George follows suit, Dream keeping an eye on the rope. He checks his gun’s safety, and replaces it with his utility knife. Once George is up, they’re going to have to remove the rope in case of DNA traces.

“Dream!” George yells out suddenly. “Help me, I gotta—you need to get me up there, right now, there’s someone—"

“Grab my arm!” Dream yells, and staggers when he does, all his weight pulling Dream to the edge. George’s climbing up, still braced against Dream, and Dream prays he doesn’t fall. The momentum makes the rope swing slightly up and—

Dream reaches out with his free arm and cuts the rope right under George’s swinging feet.

There’s a scream, a thud, and George’s weight is pulling on Dream’s arm, barely hanging on. Dream puts all his effort into pulling him up to safety, but when he tries to look over the edge George throws his hand over his eyes.

Dream’s world plunges into darkness and his instinctive fear response kicks in, scrambling to get the hands arms weight off of him. By the time they’ve stumbled apart, George is peering carefully over the edge.

“Is he dead?” Dream asks, because he has to know, even if he thinks George was ultimately right to stop him from looking.

“No. Only dropped half a story, onto one of the platforms.” George fiddles with his gun, and Dream exhales when he just slots it back onto his hip. He turns back to face Dream, moonlight washing out his already-pale skin.

The words are lodged in Dream’s throat—not that he knows what he’d say in the first place. _Is this where we part?_ Dream wonders if George thinks of him differently, for nearly killing a man or not being able to go through with it.

Even though they’re probably safe now, Dream doesn’t want to leave. He’s still waiting on Bad’s call, for one part, but everything still feels unfinished. Like there’s still more to be said, some sort of confrontation or confession.

“Sorry,” Dream says eventually, “about earlier. In the bathroom. Not that I had any way of knowing Sapnap asked you to compromise him, but still—sorry.”

“Sorry you didn’t get to drink tonight. Even though it’s your birthday,” George replies, left corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

“I was gonna spend the night with my sister anyways. Surprise visit and all that.” Dream bites his tongue the second the words leave his mouth. He’s given up information again, carelessly. But maybe he’s past caring. Whatever information he’s accidentally leaked, it’s up to George to decide what to do with it. It’s as close to trust as Dream thinks he can get.

George hums in acknowledgement, tapping away at something on his phone. “Well, get home safe, I guess.”

Dream’s not going home tonight. He’s going back to the local base and taking a shower and passing out before higher-ups can interrogate him. With luck he’ll get time to bandage the scrapes littering his body. As if on cue, his comms piece pings, Bad’s voice quietly directing him _three blocks over, into the parking building, the car is standard black, there’s a driver ready for you_.

George hears—of course he hears—and merely takes a step away from Dream. He doesn’t say anything else, even though Dream wants him to say something, anything. Instead Dream rolls out his neck, and carefully maneuvers his way across the building rooftops. Only silence follows, but when Dream dares to look George is staring back.

* * *

v. Lenzburg, Switzerland

It is the last furthest thing from coincidence when Dream tracks George down to the remote, cold prison.

He’s not sure what the fuck George is here to do—that’s a lie, there’s only one prisoner here, and it terrifies Dream to think of why the British government might want the Angel of Death after going through so much trouble to lock him away—but he _does_ know that whatever happens, it ends tonight.

It’s tempting to stall, to camp one of the brightly-lit hallways and just let George get away. He shifts his mask, just to have something to do with his hands, then makes the trek towards the center. Towards the prisoner. Towards George.

This time, Dream finds George first, crouched over his laptop next to a locked door. There’s only a few more locks between that door and perhaps the most dangerous prisoner in Europe. Before he can get spotted, Dream runs at George and tackles him to the ground, all while trying to keep George’s hands far away from his gun.

Dream whispers, fast and quiet, in case either of them are bugged. “Listen, listen, we need to get out of here.”

“For God’s sake, Dream, get _off_ of me,” George snaps. “This doesn’t involve you.”

There’s an irrational stab of hurt at that. “Yeah, well, my job involves _you_.”

George, thankfully, listens. Swallows. Narrows his eyes. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know that.”

“It—it doesn’t matter if you know or not.” Dream admits, then snaps his mouth shut and wills George to put the pieces together.

He knows, hauntingly, when George understands, because he stops struggling. He goes completely still, eyes focused on some spot on the ground.

“What happens if you don’t kill me?”

“They won’t stop. I’m just one hunter. They’ll send other people—teams of people, Illumina—they won’t stop, not until you’re…taken care of. It’s just—” Dream sucks in a breath. It’s hard to get enough air into his lungs. “—it’s better if it looks like an accident.”

“No, I mean, what happens to you? If you fail?”

“Well,” Dream says, and if he’s stalling, who can blame him? He just wants more time. “That means I fail a mission. Maybe they kick me off. Threaten my family. But—George, I’m not going to kill you.”

“I think you have to.”

This is the first time, Dream realizes, that he’s seen George in full light. They’ve only ever met in places where the lights are shut off, in the dark cover of night or the dying sunlight. He’s stupidly pale, his eyes dark in sharp contrast. Most of the time, his slim build makes him seem hard to catch. Right now, he just looks breakable.

“I don’t want to,” Dream says to his hands, fiddling with the gun. “Even if it wasn’t you—especially because it’s you—”

When he looks up, George is staring right at his mask, some sort of expectancy crossed with acceptance written all over his face. _Does he think I’m going to kill him or does he think I have a plan for this, too?_

Dream doesn’t have a plan. There’s nothing to be done—George knows too much at this point and Dream’s become something of a liability. Still, he can’t stop himself from thinking about it, testing exit routes and emergency escapes in his head.

“You’re not mic’d, are you?” George asks, probably worrying a hole through his lip.

Dream shakes his head. It had seemed like a strange move at the time, when Bad handed him a tracker but not an earpiece, but he recognizes it now as a sort of mercy. “It doesn’t really matter. Either I fail the mission or I don’t.”

George sighs. “So this is it? I could—make it a sort of standoff, if you want. Make it seem like I managed to get past you.”

But Dream can hear the hesitation clear in George’s voice, and he understands that the only way they can even plausibly fake this is if Dream gets hurt to the point that he couldn’t possibly go after George. He’d be discharged, and they’d send someone else after George in his place. He needs to be the one on George’s trail, because he’s the only one who won’t kill him.

Dream doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to lose, he doesn’t want George to die, and he doesn’t want the blood on either of their hands. What he wants: a world where he can stand back-to-back with George, instead of against him.

Instead, he says, “I’d rather if you hurt me than if I killed you.”

“Is that really what you want?” George asks, tone devoid of any readable emotion.

_No_. “I don’t know, it’s an idea.”

George doesn’t respond. It’s the worst silence of his life, and Dream resists the urge to fiddle with his gun. He doesn’t trust his hands, trained to hurt, to follow the right instincts right now.

“Y’know, they’d probably believe it, if you got away. You’ve done it before. You know my weaknesses better than anyone,” Dream says, and realizes that it’s true. His hand subconsciously reaches up to his neck. “You could just—exploit that, and you’d get away.”

“I already _tried_ ,” George snaps. “And I can’t pull the same thing twice.”

“Oh my god.” Dream realizes instantly he doesn’t mean the tranquilizer. “You’re so dumb. So dumb.”

George could fool him again and again, with the promise of one more kiss, one more touch. It’s evident in every secret he gives up, in the way he only feels wonder instead of fear when George outsmarts him.

“I don’t think it’s worth hurting you, anyways,” George says, poking aimlessly at his laptop. “It’s fine, y’know, if I have to die here. It’s either here or a couple hundred kilometers out anyways. Unless you have any other plans.”

Dream doesn’t, except: “We could try leaving it all behind, just try to make it out there. Together.”

He’s been thinking about it, since California. Since before that, even, maybe as far back as to when he saw something shift in Sapnap after the explosion and didn’t like what he found. He doesn’t want that to be him. He remembers how George had called his eyes _bright_ once, wonder laced in his tone, and he thinks he gets it now. Dream doesn’t have a plan, he just has a bet hinging on whether or not this is a two-way street for George.

If George is actually considering it, it doesn’t show. It terrifies him, to see George fixated on something on his laptop while he’s practically thrown everything out the window for him, but he waits.

“I don’t have a plan,” Dream starts, but George interrupts him.

“Dream,” George says, and what else can Dream do but listen? “Look at me.”

George’s hands are shaking and delicate on his face, cold even through the standard gloves. He lifts Dream’s mask carefully, until he can catch Dream’s eyes. When he reaches for his gun, Dream doesn’t stop him. “Do you trust me, Dream?”

Exhale. The question’s beyond stupid. Dream would trust George, even against his better judgement, even at his own expense. “Yeah. I trust you.”

George takes a step back and levels the gun in front of him. It takes everything in Dream not to squeeze his eyes shut, but if this is where it ends, he’s not going to lose a single second with George.

The shot catches his shoulder, desperately close to his neck, and into the lock behind him.

“Ow,” Dream says faintly, even though it’s really not that bad. George doesn’t respond, only grabs Dream’s gun off his belt (he hopes he’s not imagining the pressure of his sure hands, even through the layers of fabric) and shoots at his own laptop. He realizes the graze was on purpose, when George smears the tiny splatter of blood out with his boot.

“Where’s your tracker?” George asks, and Dream’s never seen him so focused. Dream hands it over wordlessly. Without hesitation, George throws it on the ground and crushes it. Two seconds later, security alarms start ringing.

“Dream,” George says forcefully, and Dream realizes painfully that he’s probably in love with him, “you need to get out of here, right now. There should be a van outside, it’ll look like security but there’ll be a keychain of dynamite on the mirror. And put the mask back down.”

_Are you coming with me?_ “Why’d you take it off in the first place, George?”

“I was—I dunno, checking for any extra bugs—whatever.” He’s faintly red, which is endearing to no end.

“You made me lift my mask for nothing,” Dream realizes, breaking out into a grin.

George shrugs a little, but he’s smiling too. “Maybe I just wanted to see your eyes.”

“When we get out of this building,” says Dream, still grinning, “I promise, I’m going to kiss you, for real this time.”

“I need to finish the job,” George says. The alarms sound louder, even though it’s probably just in his head. George presses Dream's gun back into his hands, wrapping his fingers around it. “Otherwise I’m dead no matter what. But you—you have to _go_.”

Dream inhales. He trusts George, trusts that he knows what he’s doing, but his heart wrangles itself at the thought of leaving him here alone. “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes,_ now go. I’ll meet up with you again, soon. I just need to take some time. Wipe you out of the system. Just wait for me to message you, okay? Stay safe, can you do that?”

Dream nods fiercely. He takes one last glance at George, then _runs_. He thinks about the phantom touch of George's hands, on his face, on his left hip, on his hands. He thinks about sitting in a deserted hideout hoping for some kind of code to come through and kissing George without either of their lives at risk. A promise for a promise.

* * *

\+ Unknown, Unknown

It takes about a month for Dream to hear from George again. Dream can tell he’s being careful, scrubbing away all the information that could get Dream caught without wiping his profile clean entirely. He spent a week tracking down his own trails, finding false leads and red herrings. It’s a small gift in and of itself.

He gets an actual gift in the form of coordinates, which delete themselves off his laptop within an hour of him finding them. It’s stupid, but Dream scribbles them onto his arm in permanent marker just to make sure he’ll remember them, and also because he likes looking at them.

Dream reaches the safehouse—a small apartment on the eleventh floor, the door glowing warm orange from the light of the sunset. It feels like an invitation. He takes a deep breath and knocks before turning the doorknob.

George sticks his head out from the kitchen, backlit by the last rays of sunlight. He’s wearing a plain oversized sweater, not a weapon in sight, and he’s stunning.

“Hi,” Dream does a dumb little wave and instantly wants to punch himself. “I’m Clay.”

George doesn’t say _I know_ although he does, has probably known for months. Dream loves him a little more for it. “Well, hi. I’m George.”

He’s got dinner set up on the kitchen island (“I got a table, but I don’t know how to figure out these IKEA instructions,” George says sheepishly) and it’s the first actual meal he’s had in forever where he doesn’t have to worry. Conversation circles around what they have to share—George ensures that Dream’s family is safe, not that anyone is dumb enough to publicly go after a missing person’s family, Dream offhandedly mentions that Sapnap’s finishing college for real this time, and they map out what little information they can use as leverage in the future.

There’s still a question of _where do we go from here?_ that they’re dancing around—despite the boxes waiting to be opened, Dream can’t help but feel that this little apartment studio can only be temporary. Dream washes the dishes idly wondering where they’ll go next, if it’s smarter to keeping staying continents away from his family or if it’ll throw anyone off his trail to get closer.

“Thinking so soon?” George asks, eyes observant.

“I mean, we have to, right? If we’re still going to do this sort of work.” Once you’re in you’re in, and they’ve gotta stay at least five steps ahead. They’re at a huge disadvantage in terms of material, and being disconnected from the government means working with no safety net.

George hums, “Go on.”

“Look, I thought it out—I don’t know about you, but I have enough contacts, friends on the outside, that we could probably make it out here. If it goes to plan, we’ll land a steady supply of gear within a month, and I’ve charted out activity over as many branches I could—you probably have more information on that than me—but the trends are looking good for us.” Dream gets out in a rush, carefully watching George for his reaction.

“And I assume there’s a plan B? For when it all goes to shit?”

“Okay, not _when_ , _if_ —” Dream ignores George’s blatant eyeroll, “—and well. We’ve gotten out of a few tight corners before. The first real problem is probably just—finding stuff to work with in the first place. We can’t get supplies if we don’t have contacts, and we don’t have anyone in our pocket with that kind of ammo.”

George’s eyes glitter in the low light, and Dream gets the feeling that he’s already one step ahead. “Okay, okay. What’re you hiding, George.”

“We can build up contacts,” George says, and he’s smiling now. “The Angel of Death job—it wasn’t for government, it was for Techno.”

Dream gapes. “You sneaky freak of nature, what the hell?”

It’s the ballsiest thing he’s ever heard, but he can’t stop his face from splitting into a grin. It’s a start, a real start, and this might work out after all.

“I sort of owed him one for California, since he so kindly didn’t, y’know, murder us,” George says with a shrug, even though he’s practically radiating smugness. “So we’ve got probably…I don’t know? A month? Before we really have to start moving.”

They’ve got a safehouse, they’ve got Technoblade, they’ve got time. It’s nothing short of a small miracle, and Dream thinks he could make a home out of the quiet tap of George’s fingers on his keyboard. As it is, George is staring at him again, eyes warm pools of dark.

Dream makes good on his promise.

**Author's Note:**

> "girls" don't want a dream face reveal we want a george csgo stream (1 in 7.5 trillion chance)  
> EDIT: mar10, 2021, we got it fuckers
> 
> kudos/comments always appreciated! hmu on [tumblr,](https://boatstrats.tumblr.com) if you want


End file.
